Music Tech Fest

Last Saturday I gave a talk, at Music Tech Fest, about the making of The Toadlickers. I explained how we achieved things with the Canon 5D Mark II that are supposedly impossible, such as green screen and perfect focus whilst both camera & subject are moving. I also talked about lighting, editing with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, using Adobe After Effects CS5 to comp live action and puppets, create night vision & security camera effects. After demonstrating how Magic Bullet Colorista II was used to grade footage, I showed The Toadlickers on the festival’s 66” plasmas, on which, from a technical perspective, it looked impressive, underlining the power of this technology.

Highlights of the three day event included Friday’s keynote by my friend, Martyn Ware, who talked about Heaven 17, B.E.F., The Illustrious Company – the 3D sound design company he runs with Vince Clarke, and the multitude of other projects upon which he is working; Daniel Jones’ and Peter Gregson’s ‘The Listening Machine‘ which sonifies Twitter feeds (and to which I could listen all day); Jason Singh, the Asian Tim Exile, who tore it up during his performance on Saturday night; and my friend Matt Black, who gave a presentation about ‘Ninja Jamm‘ the new Coldcut/Ninja Tune app that’s guaranteed to get everyone addicted to DJing and hosted a surprise jam session for hack camp attendees.

As I had a 5D Mark II with me, for my presentation, it would have been churlish not to have taken some pics…